Nature restoration stories: “Creating wetlands on agricultural land”
- Nature restoration
How are wetlands created? And how is Scalgo Live used for designing them? Ea Baden from Ekologigruppen talks about how she plans wetlands together with landowners.
Ekologigruppen is a consulting company, with strong values based on ecological, social, and economic sustainability. The company operates in an interdisciplinary manner and is a driving force in knowledge and method development in green urban planning and nature conservation.
Constructed or restored agricultural wetlands act as treatment plants that manage nutrients from agriculture and are located downstream of large areas of arable land. They also have a positive effect on the flora and fauna in the landscape.
"We plan wetlands together with landowners," explains Ea Baden, Environmental scientist at Ekologigruppen. "In areas that are otherwise not highly productive and are often wet, the landowner may be interested in establishing or restoring wetlands."
This can be agricultural land, which before was pastureland, that the landowner has tried to cultivate when animals are no longer kept.
Figure 1. Example of an agricultural wetland.
"To clean the surface water in the wetland, we want flow paths that go through the wetland to be as long as possible, meaning that we get a large watershed", Ea continues. "We don't create round wetlands, but areas that are stretched out, so that the water can slowly move through. Wetlands should also have varying water levels and shallow environments with vegetation that remove phosphorus and nitrogen."
"With a few clicks, we can estimate volumes and the mass balance of soil movement."
Ea Baden, Ekologigruppen
"Preferably, we always want to create wetlands by damming the water. This avoids excavations of peat or using large quantities of diesel, which emits greenhouse gases," clarifies Ea.
Damming surface water is often difficult in flat landscapes or places with a lot of infrastructure since this limits how high you are allowed to dam water without jeopardising public and private interests.
"In those cases, we may need to excavate. Then it is good to keep track of volumes and the mass balance of moving soil."
Figure 2. Ea and her colleagues use terrain editing tools in Scalgo Live to design wetlands.
"In Scalgo Live, we can design wetlands using the terrain editing tools," explains Ea. "With a few clicks, we can estimate volumes and the mass balance of soil movement."
Planning for wetlands is an administratively heavy process. There is a lot of work to be done, with permits to be submitted and notifications to be made.
"It's quite a complicated process and not many have the expertise to get it all done," Ea states, "but here at Ekologigruppen, we have the knowledge."
